The following incident is concerning a young lady, who, under deep conviction for sin, left a revival meeting to attend a dance which had been put together by a party of ungodly men, for the purpose of breaking up the religious meeting. She caught a severe cold at the dance and was soon on her death bed. In conversation with a minister, she said, "Mr. Rice, my mind was never clearer. I tell you all today that I do not wish to be a Christian. Don't want to go to heaven -- would not if I could. I would rather go to hell than heaven, they need not keep the gates closed."
"But you don't want to go to hell, do you Jennie?" was asked.
She replied, "No, Mr. Rice. O, that I had never been born. I am suffering now the agonies of the lost. If I could but get away from God; but no, I must always see Him and be looked upon by Him. How I hate Him -- I cannot help it. I drove His Spirit from my heart when He would have filled it with His love; and now I am left to my own evil nature -- given over to the devil for my eternal destruction. My agony is inexpressible! How will I endure the endless ages of eternity? O, that dreadful, unlimited, unfathomable eternity."
When asked by Mr. Rice how she got into that despairing mood, she replied, "It was that fatal Friday evening last winter when I deliberately stayed away from the meeting to attend the dance. I felt so sad, for my heart was tender -- I could scarcely keep from weeping. I felt provoked to think that my last dance, as I felt it to be for some cause, should be spoiled. I endured it until I became angry, then with all my might I drove the influence of the Spirit away from me, and it was then that I had the feeling that He had left me forever. I knew that I had done something terrible, but it was done. From that time I have had no desire to be a Christian, but have been sinking down into deeper darkness and more bitter despair. And now all around, and above and beneath me are impenetrable clouds of darkness. O, the terrible gloom; when will it cease?"
She then sank away and lay like one dead a short time. But she raised her hand slightly, her lips quivering as if in the agonies of death, her eyes opened with a fixed and awful stare, and then gave such a despairing groan. "Oh, what horror," whispered the sufferer. Then turning to Mr. Rice, she said, "Go home now and return this evening. I don't want you to pray for me. I don't want to be tormented with the sound of prayer."
About four o'clock she inquired the time, and upon being told exclaimed, "O, how slowly the hours wear away. This day seems an age to me. O, how will I endure eternity?"
In about an hour she said, "How slowly the time drags. Why may I not cease to be?"
About seven P. M. she sent for Mr. Rice. As he approached her bed Jennie said to him, "I want you to preach at my funeral. Warn all of my young friends against the ball-room. Remember everything I have said and use it."
He replied, "How can I do this? Jennie, how I do wish you were a good Christian, and had a hope of eternal life."
"Now, Mr. Rice, I don't want to hear anything about that. I do not want to be tormented with the thought. I am utterly hopeless; my time is growing short; my fate is eternally fixed I die without hope because I insulted the Holy Spirit so bitterly. He has justly left me alone to go down to eternal night. He could not have borne with me any longer and followed farther and retained His divine honor and dignity. I wait but a few moments, and as much as I dread it, I must quit these mortal shores. I would delay, I would linger -- but no! The fiends, they come; O save me! They drag me down! Lost! lost! lost!" she whispered as she struggled in the agonies of death.
A moment more and she rallied and with glazed eyes she looked upon her weeping friends for the last time, then the lids sank partly down and pressed out a remaining tear as she whispered, "Bind me, ye chains of darkness! Oh! that I might cease to be, but still exist. The worm that never dies, the second death." The spirit fled, and Jennie Gordon lay a lifeless form of clay.
This shocking testimony is an excerpt from a book that was written and compiled by Solomon B. Shaw in 1898, entitled,"Dying Testimonies of the Saved and Unsaved".
“Not only have millions upon millions of God’s children witnessed in life and death of Jesus’ power to save, but most infidels, skeptics, and sinners of every grade are constrained to acknowledge the truth of the Christian religion before they die.” - S.B. Shaw
“Multitudes, while dying, see and hear things that are not seen or heard by others.” - S.B. Shaw
